My name is Rebecca and I am 34 years old and I have a story to tell.
I was the only child of small town parents whose names I cannot bring myself to say. My father was an accounts clerk for the large major employer in town. This company was owned by another family whose name I refuse to even let pass my lips.
They were ‘old money’, privileged and thought the whole world was theirs by right. My father was a subservient little man who thought likewise and saw his role as being slavish to ‘his betters’.
I was sixteen on the fateful day which would forever change my life. My parents were beside themselves with foolish pride as they prepared me for a date at a concert. I was young but they had decided that it would be ok for me to go with him, as his family were rich – therefore respectable.
I was going with the son of the mill owner.
Oh how they had boasted at the club when he asked me.
The evenings proceedings are irrelevant, the whole point of this story revolves around what happened at the end of the night.
I felt a little dizzy and a little woozy as my date led me to his car. I couldn’t understand why, as I had drank very little.
The upshot of all this was waking up in the woods in his car. He was outside in the dark smoking a cigarette when I came to. I was confused and disorientated but as my head slowly cleared, it became obvious that my clothing had been tampered with.
That was the least of my worries.
As I moved I felt the wetness between my legs, shakily I felt myself.
I was sodden in my panties and when I removed my hand from myself I looked at my fingers.
They were covered in blood and a white sticky substance.
I had been raped.
Under the influence of alcohol or drugs or whatever he had given me, he had violated my body. I started to scream at him and tried to hit him with my fists. He very arrogantly just held my wrists and laughed at me.
On my arrival home, I ran to my parents crying hysterically and blubbering out all that had happened. The rich boy stood by his car, arrogant and unworried as though he was untouchable and above the law. When my father (respectfully) demanded to know from him what had happened, he told my father that we had had sex and that I had begged him for it.
My father, being a miserable, pathetic and subservient man, who thought the rich family to be his betters, believed him. That night he told me that I had shamed him because ‘people like them wouldn’t possibly lie.’
My pregnancy changed things – for the worse. People now thought me a little slut who had got herself knocked-up because she couldn’t keep her legs together. No one would believe me, even my parents still thought me to be a tramp.
A few weeks later my parents disowned me, threw me out and I found myself in a hostel for unmarried mothers.
My reputation followed me where ever I went. My rapist’s family, in a desperate bid to protect their son, used power, money and influence to besmirch me and blacken my name.
In the hostel I made no friends except one girl who was in the same boat as I was.